School Nurses Can Help Tackle Childhood Obesity

School nurses are responsible for much more than bandaging bruised knees and taking temperatures. According to a Rutgers study published in the journal Pediatric Nursing, they may also play an important effect in lowering childhood obesity (1^✔ ✔Trusted Source
Parents and Teachers as Role Models for Healthy Behaviors in Preschoolers

Go to source). Elaine Elliott, a Newark school nurse, collaborated with Cheryl Holly and the late Sallie Porter, both Rutgers University School of Nursing professors, to evaluate a family-centered, school-based intervention that used parents and teachers as role models for healthy eating and other behaviors.

“An important reason for the success of this program was the trust nurses have with parents and teachers,” said Elliott, who received her doctor of nursing practice degree from Rutgers in 2019. “I’ve developed a close relationship with the community that only a school nurse can have.”

Promoting Healthy Habits in Preschoolers

Parents and instructors from a Newark public preschool with high obesity rates were invited to participate in the initiative. Thirty-seven parents, teachers, and classroom aides representing 37 children aged 3 to 5 participated in the four-week study, which included weekly 45-minute sessions.

The training, modeled after a similar program in Maine called Let's Go!, teaches how to encourage youngsters to eat at least five servings of vegetables per day, limit screen time to no more than two hours per day, engage in at least one hour of physical exercise per day, and consume no sugary drinks. Participants were required to apply what they had learnt by engaging children at home and in the classroom during the second week of the program. Elliott, the school nurse, was on hand in person and online to offer assistance.

According to pre- and post-survey statistics, children's fruit and vegetable consumption increased from one to five servings per day on average. The number of days children shared dinner and breakfast with their families increased dramatically from two to five per week on average. Furthermore, youngsters reduced their intake of takeout food by two days per week on average.

School Nurse's Impact on Healthy Screen Time Habits

The time children spent watching television or playing video games decreased by two hours, from slightly more than three and a half hours on average to one and a half hours after the intervention.

According to Holly, the findings were much better than any previous study fashioned after Maine's approach. The presence of a school nurse directing the program and making herself available to answer inquiries was ascribed to the researchers' findings.

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“The significant results obtained, not seen in other studies using the Let’s Go! program, are postulated to be the result of the teaching and coordination of the program by someone familiar with the environment and the children and their families (the school nurse who lives in the area),” the researchers wrote. “The school nurse used a lay person’s vocabulary and culturally based food examples based on community available resources to demonstrate how to achieve health goals despite any socio-economic limitations.”

Despite the important role that school nurses play in fostering healthy habits, many schools are cutting nursing staff. According to data from the National Association of School Nurses, a quarter of the country's schools had no nurse in 2017. According to Holly, the COVID-19 pandemic likely aggravated these inadequacies.

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According to the New Jersey administrative code (6A:13A-4.5), one nurse is required for every 300 preschool pupils. However, in other places, nurses, including those with extensive early childhood experience, are being shifted to larger elementary and high schools to fill vacancies. Future research should look into whether these changes are hurting the health of preschoolers, according to Elliot.

Reference:

1. Parents and Teachers as Role Models for Healthy Behaviors in Preschoolers - (http://www.pediatricnursing.net/issues/23mayjun/abstr4.html)

Source-Medindia